A plane landed in San Diego's Brown Field airport yesterday full of dogs rescued from New Orleans and surrounding parishes. Many dogs arrived emaciated or underweight, bruised, nicked, scratched, bitten and traumatized.

Seven San Diego animal societies welcomed the 102 dogs from a staging area in Gonzales, La.

Lucky dog hits stage

At least one rescued dog, a young brown Yorkie mix named Katie, is settling in well in San Diego.

She was brought here by an animal rescue effort led by San Diegan Lee Bergeron. After her temporary guardian answered a casting call from the production company Broadway San Diego, Katie beat out 50 other animals to star in the musical "Annie" that opened at the San Diego Civic Theatre last night.

The dogs came on a chartered 737 plane paid for by Steve Bing, who owns Shangri-La Entertainment, a production company in Los Angeles. Bing is friends with Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, his wife Madeleine, owner of the Del Mar Country Club, and her sister Christine Penrod. The trio have paid for several flights – they've lost count – of animals out of Louisiana to places such as San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Palm Springs and Colorado. Each flight runs in the tens of thousands of dollars.

"It's beautiful" to see the animals safe, Penrod said.

Each animal yesterday was assigned a human buddy – trained animal handlers – to accompany each dog as it was weighed, examined, given a temporary collar identification, microchipped and vaccinated.

SPCA agent Mike Griffin was escorting a 7-or 8-year-old dark brown lab mix. "He's been with me for about an hour now."

That's all it took for the dog to become endeared. Even as doctors pricked the dog for its blood test, it wagged its tail for Griffin, who comforted it with petting.

"After all the trauma they've experienced, they're still coming out showing unconditional love," said Tony Sawyer, a rescue worker with the San Diego Humane Society who saw the devastation pets experienced in the Gulf Coast.

Animals are still being rescued there, he said, and the situation gets worse each day for surviving animals. Some of them have gone into survival mode, becoming unapproachable by humans and eating whatever they find, including other animals.

That's why the local animal societies decided to welcome up to 150 pets immediately, said San Diego Humane Society president Mark Goldstein. They want to free up space in the emergency shelter in Louisiana for more animals.

Most of the injured dogs will stay at the San Diego Humane Society. The rest will be sent to the North County Humane Society, the SPCA, the County of San Diego Department of Animal Services, Escondido Humane Society, Rancho Coastal Humane Society, El Cajon Animal Shelter and Chula Vista Animal Care.

The dogs had their photos taken, to be featured on the Web site www.petfinder.com, so that if they have owners they can be matched.

Meanwhile, the pets will be available for foster care, with a possibility of adoption, as soon as they are well. That could be two days or two weeks.

If owners do not come forth by Dec. 31, the foster families will be able to adopt the pets, said Stacy Herro, executive director of the North County Humane Society.

"Because these dogs have been through so much already," Herro said, "the ideal situation would be to find a home that could become permanent."